One Table NL Tourneys at Party

[heyrocker]

Hello all,

I am a poker hobbyist who has come in and out of the game at various times over the years as interest and finances have ebbed and flowed. I am well versed in the basics, but have never put forth the cash or effort to really get my chops down. Living in Chicago doesn't help that much.

Recently I bought in at PartyPoker. This is the third time I have bought in to an online site, twice at Paradise and both times I lost my initial buyin ($200 each time) playing low limit ring games. At Party I decided I would give the NL one table tourneys a try. I have now played five ($10/$1), and my results are 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd. I guess I must be doing something right. I have never done any reading on NL (although I have read, but not heavily studied, all the other major published work on Hold'Em.) About my only experience with it is watching WPT. After my first tourney my instincts told me that the proper way to play this was to play tight early and let the loose canons take care of themselves, then as the table gets down to say 5, start making plays and becoming more agressive. At Party you pretty much have to do this to overcome the blinds anyways. Reading some posts here seems to confirm this as the way to go, and its nice to see my instincts were correct.

What all this boils down to is I'm trying to determine if I've just gotten lucky. What have other people's experience been at tournaments on Party at this level? Do the players get significantly better at the higher levels? I am also intrigued by the Pokerstars tourneys with the less oppressive blind structure and double table tourneys. How does that play differently?

Thanks all for any comments.

[FeliciaLee]

After experimenting with a few sites, different games, different buy-in's, I have found a "home" at Stars NLHE sit-n-go's.

The chips are almost double at 1500. The table is a nine-top. Blinds move up much slower...every ten minutes.

The biggest adjustment I made to Stars vs. Party is that limp in with a lot more hands early at Stars. Then I usually do the fit or fold routine on the flop.

Besides that one adustment, the rest is about the same for me...waiting out the maniacs, and the ones who play ATC. Very tight until five-handed, etc. Just as you have come to know and love (because it works).

My cash rate is about 50%, but climbing a fraction every day. I have about 100 SNG's so far to use. Of course, you have to remember that I never played NLHE until less than a month ago. My first real NLHE sit-n-go was 6/21/03. So that stats have had huge swings, but are now evening out a little.

You will have runs like you have experienced so far. For instance, the day before yesterday, I was 8:10 cashes. Yesterday I was 2:10, lol (my worst day thus far). Yesterday was bad beats of the century day. Everything got run down. In one SNG, I was out the first hand. In another, I was out the second. It happens. Some people WILL call with anything. If I make a strong bet BTF with pocket aces, someone might call. If I go all-in on the innocent-raggedly looking flop, someone might call. Once it was a 54 that ran down my pocket aces. It happens. The Europeans especially love playing crazy like that. Most of the time if my Group I hands get run down, it is a European who does the damage. They like to play loose and wild, for the most part /forums/images/icons/smirk.gif I'm not complaining. I love 'em.

As far as moving up buy-in's, I have done it twice. I went from the $5.50 to the $11 and now up to the $22. I won't bother to go into the difference between the $5.50 and the $11, I'm sure anyone could figure that one out. The differences/similarities between the $11 and the $22 are that the $22 have just as many truly bad players, so the bad beats still happen, and at just about the same frequency. The biggest difference is seen when we get down to about 3 or 4. Most of the time those players are pretty good. Unless a maniac has managed to survive that long with crazy plays, the ones who are in the cash are decent players. I'm not saying they are great players, but they are decent. It is much harder for me to make first place in a $22 tourney than an $11 tourney. For someone who is better than me, I'm sure they wouldn't see it this way, but like I said, I'm just starting out. It is kind of a double whammy for me in the $22 tourneys. I still get the same bad beats, but then I am susceptible to being outplayed when we get short. Not a position I like to be in. I like to be in control and hold my own. I usually can, even in the $22 tourneys, but sometimes I am outplayed and have to kick myself and start over again.

I have heard that the $55 and up tourneys get much tougher. I have no experience with them, but that is what the Stars rumor mill is always saying.

Good luck! I hope I helped you out.

[DigitalNate]

I have had similar success playing $30+3 pot limit sit-n-gos at party. I started playing them almost exclusively with a few no-limit sit-n-gos thrown in, since pot limit only goes up to the $30+3 level. After my first 2 weeks of playing these, I am finding myself in the money over 70% of the time, and have grossed $750 in profit on tourneys. I just started playing them, but have found the higher buy-in NL tables have a little tougher players, but the same strategys I use at the smaller tables work pretty well with minor changes.

My general strategy has been to play a little tight the first few hands until I can see who the maniacs are, then try to limp a bit more than normal while the blinds are low with hands like smaller suited connectors and most face cards when I am in later positions. The idea being to try and get a small lead early, without risking too many chips. If I don't get any good results with that, I am usually not sitting too bad by the time we get down to 5 or so people, and depending on the way the table is playing can usually either build up my stack by stealing or fold my way into the money. If I have built up a larger stack I will play a little more, but still avoid high chip risk in marginal situations, even to eliminate short stacks, until we get down to the last 3.

I have found this last issue to be a major weakness in a lot of players, that is trying to eliminate shorter stacks. I can't count how many times I have seen a 2k stack call an all in by an ~800 stack with a very marginal hand, only to end up crippling their own stack, and bust out a few hands later.

If you are not very familiar with big bet poker or tournament poker in general however, I would recommend reading Sklansky's Tournament PFAP, and Ciaffone & Rueben's Pot-limit & No-limit poker. The concepts in those books have helped my game tremendously.